A MAJOR milestone in the construction of a new £2.7million health centre took place as the first sod was cut.

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and under- fire Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing Alex Neil carried out the cere-mony at the Shields Health and Care Centre in Glasg-ow's East Pollokshields.

The state-of-the-art health and care centre will house two GP practices, district nursing, health visitors, social work, community addiction services and health improvement teams offering a range of services including smoking cessation support.

Other services such as primary care mental health services and money advice will also have the opport-unity to use the community consulting rooms.

Mr Neil said: "I am delighted to have cut the first sod of land on this project. It is a wonderful example of our hub programme bringing together comm-unity planning partners to achieve better value and deliver real benefits for local communities."

The centre will be built in McCulloch Street and building is expected to be completed by December - with the first patients and visitors through the doors in January next year.

Later when Mr Neil ret-urned to Holyrood he faced calls for his resignation or sacking from Labour leader Johann Lamont over contro-versial changes to mental health services in his own constituency.

Mr Neil came under fire during First Minister's Questions at Holyrood when Ms Lamont accused him of misleading Parliament over plans to remove acute mental health beds at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie in 2012.

She said new information obtained by Labour showed Mr Neil intervened in the decision-making process upon becoming Health Secretary, before stepping back and handing responsibility for the matter to his deputy the Public Health Minister, citing concerns over a "conflict of interests".

She asked Alex Salmond on four occasions to state whether Mr Neil would resign or be sacked.